Insidious: The Red Door Review – A Fantastic Conclusion!

Insidious has been a whirlwind of a franchise, beginning in 2010 with its first title film followed by a sequel, two prequels, and now a finale to the original trilogy following the Lambert family. The first film Insidious was a terrifying supernatural journey with horror sequences that have been ingrained in my memory for years for its unsettling tone and images that rely on pure fear rather than all jump scares. It centered on young Dalton as he is targeted by a red demon in hopes of taking control of his living soul.

Insidious: Chapter 2 was able to expand on the Lambert’s story, explaining the sinister entity that has followed father Josh since childhood and his ability to astral project out of his body, a skill he passed on to Dalton in film one. Insidious: Chapter 3 and The Last Key were prequel films that failed to carry any substantial weight towards expanding the world or the characters we grew to love in the first two films.

As a result, the announcement of a conclusion to Josh and Dalton’s story was very up in the air. However, under the direction of Patrick Wilson, Insidious: The Red Door is a fantastic conclusion to not only the Lambert’s journey but the franchise as a whole.

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Years after being hypnotized to forget their ability to astral project into “The Further,” Dalton and his father face a haunting past. As Dalton heads to college, he becomes consumed by the gaps in his memory and seeks to uncover his true identity. Strained relations with his father prompt a road trip, but little do they know the danger that awaits. As Dalton unravels his past, his family’s safety hangs in the balance.

First off, Insidious: The Red Door examination of childhood trauma is executed incredibly by Patrick Wilson and screenwriter Scott Teems. The film’s balance of maintaining the thematic elements from the first two movies to enhance Dalton and Josh’s deep dive into their subconscious makes this third instalment essential to the larger story. It knows how to uncover the various layers of trauma and the importance of facing trauma head on rather than forgetting it.

While this instalment carries a number of horrifying scares and skin crawling images, it knows that aside from demons and entities, the scariest part of life is the unknown, the blank spots in memory that prevent us from moving on emotionally and mentally, rather than the trauma itself. Dalton begins to understand that fear does not go away. However, facing his childhood trauma allows these memories to become more manageable than not fighting them.

At the core of the trilogy, Insidious has always been a story about a father and son and the trauma that gets passed on generationally. In this film we begin to uncover Josh’s relationship with his father and how it has impacted his relationship with his own son Dalton. Insidious: The Red Door takes on generational mistakes that are unfortunately cycled down the line and the importance to find an end to it.

Although horror films have provided satisfaction in conclusions to ongoing stories through the years, this conclusion to the Insidious franchise got this critic filled with emotion, watching the mending of a father-son relationship thirteen years in the making. The juxtapositioning shots of Dalton and Josh uncovered buried memories together allow this broken string in their relationship to be tied back together again.

Ty Simpkins’ performance is one for the horror film books. His ability to harness Dalton as a college student after portraying him so many years before feels like his grasp on the character was never loosened. He commands the screen along with Patrick Wilson to draw in fans as well as newcomers who may want to revisit the rest of the franchise afterwards.

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As someone who grew up as a young child being drawn to stories of ghosts, monsters, and the unknown, Insidious: The Red Door harnessed the terror my young soul thrived off of while including the real human elements that are often inside every horror story. The conclusion to the film brought out the feeling inside of me that Anton Ego felt after taking a bite of Remy’s Ratatouille in the Disney classic. An end to an era for Insidious it may be, but the continuing spark for horror that this critic still carries since childhood has been ignited even brighter after watching the film. That is all one can ask from from a movie.

‘Insidious: The Red Door’ Rating – 3.5/5

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